Bill Clinton says U.S. should prevent a nuclear-armed Iran but argues war without a clear endgame is a mistake

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons but argued that military action was the wrong approach if Washington had no intention of occupying the country or a clear plan for ending the conflict.

“Nobody would like it more than me if the Iranians never became a nuclear power and eventually gave over to a genuine democracy,” Clinton said Friday at a campaign rally in Tupelo, Mississippi, for Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom.

“We did quite a lot to sabotage their efforts to build nuclear weapons when I was president,” he said. “But I never thought we should go to war and see a lot of people die because we weren’t about to occupy the country. And you don’t start killing people unless you know how you’re going to stop.”

Clinton also criticized President Donald Trump’s approach to authoritarian leaders, saying Trump “really admires Putin” and had also praised Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Turning to tariffs, Clinton recalled conversations with Trump more than two decades ago in which Trump argued that the United States could impose broad tariffs on other countries and reduce domestic taxes.

Clinton said he told Trump that foreign producers would not simply absorb the tariffs and would instead pass the costs on to U.S. buyers. “So we pay the tariffs,” he recalled telling him.

“He, just like now, didn’t hear what he didn’t want to hear,” Clinton said.